We Finally Made It...

After 18 hours of travel Simmons Soccer has finally arrived in Italy. We left on Saturday afternoon around 4:00pm and checked in at Logan Airport in Boston. Our flight was set to take off at 7:05pm so we had plenty of time to grab a bite to eat and make it through security. We waited patiently for the announcement for our flight to board. Some of us played Uno, while others text messaged family and friends. The staff made our last minute checks and finally we boarded the plane. Dressed in our Simmons Sharks sweatsuits we had quite a few people stop and ask us where we were traveling to and for what reason. After 6 hours we landed in Amsterdam (8:15am local time, but it felt like 1:15am to us). Exhausted and running on adrenaline we boarded our next flight to Rome. Once in Rome we still had a 3 hour drive before we reached our hotel in Gubbio. Luciano, our native bus driver, greeted us at the airport with a coach bus, fresh bananas and bottled water. We were able to catch a nap on the bus drive. Still groggy, we pulled up to Relais Ducale, the former castle of the Duke of Montefeltro. We walked up steep cobblestone streets and what felt like an endless line of stairs before we reached our new home for the next couple of nights. We had just enough time for a quick shower before we headed off to the oldest restaurant in Gubbio. We enjoyed pasta, veal, potatoes and a sweet apple marmalade and sweet cream dessert. The team walked around the streets of Gubbio briefly before heading back to the Relais Ducale for bed. We will have our first training session in the morning.